A clandestine recording from February 2015 has surfaced featuring former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak discussing demographic engineering strategies with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The explosive audio reveals Barak’s account of lobbying Russian President Vladimir Putin to facilitate the emigration of “one more million Russians” to Israel, explicitly stating this migration would “change Israel in a dramatic, dramatic manner” by diluting the Palestinian demographic presence.
Barak, whose own family origins trace to Eastern European Jewish settlers, elaborated on his vision for selective migration policies, emphasizing the need to “control the quality” of future Russian settlers. His comments reveal deep-seated ethnic hierarchies within Israeli society, particularly regarding the approximately one million Soviet immigrants who arrived in the 1990s—less than half of whom were recognized as Jewish under orthodox law by 2005.
The recording captures Barak outlining plans to challenge orthodox religious authority, proposing to “break the monopoly of the orthodox rabbinate on marriage and funerals and whatever, and the definition of a Jew” through sophisticated conversion processes. He suggested that many Russians could settle without conversion as a precondition, anticipating that “social pressure” would eventually lead to their adaptation.
Barak’s remarks expose historical tensions between Ashkenazi leadership and Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, whom he described as having been accepted out of necessity during Israel’s founding era. He explicitly ranked minority groups deserving of equality, prioritizing Druze communities (approximately 1% of the population) for their military service, followed by Christian minorities (approximately 2%) for their educational achievements.
The recording further reveals Barak’s concerning association with Epstein, including over 30 visits to Epstein’s New York townhouse between 2013-2017. An FBI memo separately noted that Epstein “trained as a spy under him,” adding another layer to their decade-long relationship. The context of their discussion—with Epstein heard chuckling as Barak mentioned “young girls who can’t talk”—takes on disturbing significance given Epstein’s trafficking of Russian women to powerful figures.